Legendary Maine Lost Treasure Stories, Treasure Hunt Party Games, and State History

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Carpenter Ridge Diamonds In the 1850's, when diamonds were being smuggled from Canada into the U.S., a man emerged from the woods just south of Buffalo and east of Portage Lake and claimed he had buried a leather pouch full of diamonds on or near Carpenter Ridge near where he buried his daughter after she died during their long trip. It is not known if he placed a marker where he buried her. They were planning to continue south to Bangor to meet a boat. It appears there may now be a trail on the west side of the ridge from the main road to the summit. (Map of the Area)

Harpswell Spanish Treasure The pirate Edward Lowe is believed to have buried a huge sum of gold coins, silver bars, and jewels in the Harpswell area at both Haskell Island at the South Harpswell Neck and at the edge of a pond on Pond Island in Casco Bay east of Harpswell. In 1723, he attacked the Spanish ship Don Pedro del Montclova that was traveling from Havana to Spain, commandeered the treasure, and sank the ship. When a British gunboat began pursuing them, Captain Lowe and his men hauled the treasure ashore at the south end of Pond Island in three longboats, and then carried it to the edge of a large pond on the northeast side of the island and tossed the chests, bars of silver, and kegs into the water. Lowe never returned to recover the loot, and was executed by a French court for piracy. Also, a pot of gold coins was found by a farmer on Pond Island so Edward Lowe or other pirates may have regularly hid treasure on this island. (Map of Pond and Haskell Islands)

Treasure of the Citadel (From the British Columbia Magazine Archives and research -- over the border in Canada but easily accessible from Maine so included here) A Canadian journalist investigated a story of historic treasure buried near the Plains of Abraham during the monumentous Quebec struggle between Montcalm and Wolfe in the early days of this country, referred to the Battle of Quebec or Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Documents both ancient and modern which were placed at his disposal apparently demonstrate that the story is no myth, but a matter of historic fact.

The story of the treasure is a part of the history of two nations. War existed at the time between England and France. In the Quebec citadel (known as the Gibraltar of America), the supposedly impregnable stronghold of Louis-Quinze on this continent, a vast amount in Louis-d'or gold doubloons from the Spanish main, family jewels of the grand seigneurs exiled here, silver-hilted daggers studded with precious stones, and other valuables and heirlooms brought out from the chateaux in France, amounting in value to several million dollars, had been gathered for safe keeping toward the fall of 1758. An attack on the fort was considered a certainty, and to prevent all this wealth falling into the enemy's hands, Montcalm gave secret instructions for the treasure to be placed in pigskins and brass-bound trunks and taken in boats up the St. Charles River, near the city, and buried till such period as it could be exhumed in more auspicious times.

Now, in the spring of 1908 a French habitant, whom we will call Perron, living in an old chateau near Quebec city, conceived the idea of rebuilding the old-fashioned, ramshackle fireplace in the main room. Accordingly he set to work one morning, and in removing one of the huge cut stone slabs in the rear came across a small oblong silver-bound box, exquisitely carved in fantastic design, with a small tarnished silver key in the lock. Amazed and delighted, he quickly assembled his family of seventeen children to wonder and exclaim at the discovery. Of course, there was but one thing to be done, namely, to leave the treasure trove exactly as it had lain for the last hundred and fifty years and go post-haste for the priest.

The box was then opened, and their curiosity was rewarded by a small piece of parchment, yellow with age and bearing an inscription in old French handwriting. The writing was evidently that of a scholar, and was dated 1758. Translated into English it read as follows:

"At the little bay on River Saint Charles, ten feet up the east bank and five feet deep in the earth, ye shall find buried in plaster, burnt wood, plate and ingot of silver and the skull of a sheep. Beneath is the secret of a great treasure."

The holy father counseled Perron to keep the document a secret until they had proven its truth or falsity. The couple went secretly to work next day, and after some trouble in gauging measurements and agreeing upon a likely spot, Perron dug a hole, and at a depth of eight feet (the difference in depth being, no doubt, due to the piling of new soil on the spot since the document \vas written) they found the plaster mould containing the queer collection of articles mentioned in the message. At the bottom of all was a small rusty iron-bound box, which they broke open. It contained a rough chart, written in French of the old regime. Freely translated, it read:

"Across River Saint Charles to the wood near the small bay and peninsula. Twenty feet N.N.W. by N. toward the clump of firs. "Fifty feet as the sun sets. "Five deep and set in plaster lies the great treasure from the Citadel. "God save us all."

The pair gathered up the silver plate and ingot (which had become much tarnished), the skull and box, replaced the upturned sod, and returned home to the chateau, where they pondered over the chart for more than a week ere deciding on what to do next. Then one morning they went off with the precious chart to spy out the land. The little bay and peninsula were located, but the grove of firs was now something else. In 1909 the entire region was covered with firs, and the quest seemed hopeless. After much groping around and calculation on the part of the priest, they decided on a spot at which to commence operations.

The search was exceedingly difficult since all of the work had to be accomplished at night due to the land being privately owned at the time, and the two French-Canadians did not want to share the treasure. Accompanied by the holy man swinging a lantern, poor Perron dug and dug and dug til every bone in his body ached with the exertion, but all the reward for his efforts was a huge pile of earth.

After two nights spent in this manner Perron decided (unknown to the priest) to call in a local hypnotist. This man wrote to a well-known clairvoyant in Montreal for help in divining the whereabouts of the treasure. The Montreal man gave the details to the writer, with copies of the chart and parchment, a rude sketch of the ground taken by himself on the spot, and the letters received from the Frenchman which are appended at the foot of this article.

In the meantime, by aid of the chart, the Quebecois located the neighborhood of the treasure, took habitant Perron there by day and hypnotised him on the ground, in the hope that he would be able to locate the exact spot while under the spell, his concentration of mind on the subject being such since discovery of the original
document that he pondered on it all day and dreamt of it by night.

The hypnotised subject, therefore, being landed from the boat on the eastern bank of the little St. Charles in the presumed bay, and being told in impressive manner by the hypnotist what was expected of him, led the way without hesitation half up the hillside into a small coppice of firs, gazed steadily down upon the ground for some moments, and waved his arms demonstratively around him, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered to his expectant companions, "Dans cent pleds, mes amis," meaning he had located the treasure spot within a hundred feet. They carefully marked the spot, and that very night brought up two men with picks and shovels and set to work. They made a hole twenty feet square by ten deep before morning, but without any success.

Between the time of finding the original document and the discovery of the chart in the spot indicated some months had elapsed, and in the meantime two brothers of the simple habitant, one in Los Angeles and the other in Paris, France, had been apprised and were on their way to Quebec to assist at the exhumation of the treasure and division of spoil. The Los Angeles man was burned to death in a train wreck on his journey across the continent, and the other brother disappeared
one stormy night off the deck of an Atlantic liner and was never seen again!

A week or two later the Quebec hypnotist again put Perron under his influence and landed him on the bank of St. Charles one fine morning. This time he led off in a somewhat contrary direction, up the hill and across a miniature ravine, though within a stone's throw of the primary excavation. Arrived there he waved his hands and again made the exclamation, "Within a hundred feet." Next night Perron and his merry men went to work in the dim light shed by a couple of candle lanterns and dug up another twenty-foot patch of mother-earth to about equal depth, and again without result.

Then the local man sent an urgent wire to Montreal for a brother clairvoyant, who travelled down to the ancient capital and went carefully over the ground, but had to give up in despair owing to the impossibility of purchasing the surrounding acres, which were held by the church, and to the danger of working by night as trespassers on private property.

Still, if these ancient documents can be relied on, which seems perfectly feasible, somewhere on that little peninsula of the St. Charles within a circumscribed radius lies buried today wealth in gold, ingots and jewelry sufficient to make men millionaires. Since 1909 there have been several attempts by local treasure hunters to find this lost treasure, but it has eluded all efforts.

Appended are letters from the Quebecois to his Montreal confrere.

Translation of letters to Professor Wilfrid Campbell, at Montreal:

"Quebec, May 17, 1908.
"Dear Mr. Campbell:

"Will you please consider this letter seriously? I am a perfect hypnotist, but lack a complete knowledge of clairvoyancy. If you are really an expert clairvoyant I will join forces with you, and the result will be several million dollars between us. There exists at Quebec a place wherein the French founders of our country have cached underground a huge fortune which has never been recovered. I am not jesting: I hold certain documents and can locate the place exactly within a radius of a hundred feet, and I will lead you to it, once you have proved your capacity to me, and we will share equally in the find.

"I remain, Yours truly,'
------------------------------------------------------
"Quebec, May 22, 1908.
"Dear Sir:

"Replying to yours of 20th inst, I am quite sure you will suit my purpose, and will give you all details possible at this writing.

"Firstly, the ground containing the treasure is not my property and we must work at night, but we can take our time, seeing the place is forty acres from the nearest houses. Above all things, we must keep a still tongue in a wise head, for the owner and the government have the right to confiscate anything we may find. It's easy to go over the ground in daytime. I will explain everything at proper time and place. This treasure is supposed to have been cached by the French army between 1758 and 1765, and it is of vast amount. I am quite confident it lies within a space of 100 feet by 50, but the most difficult problem for me to decide on is the exact spot, and it is there you'll be of service if you are a perfect clairvoyant. Shall give you every assistance and all my knowledge as soon as you produce the proof required. I have performed on several subjects and have made them partly clairvoyant, but have not attained to the degree of perfection desired. I hope you will excel all others I have known.

"I speak English, but do not write it. You can write me in English � I read it as well as French, but will continue to write you in French.

"If you can come to Quebec before June it will be preferable, because there are less spies around at present than there will be in June, during the fetes.

NOTE: The Citadel replaced or incorporated defense works (old fort in this treasure story) built during the French regime, e.g., the western rampart (still in existence opposite the National Assembly http://www.assnat.qc.ca/eng/index.html ). After the Conquest of 1759-60, the British considered this rampart inadequate;

NOTE: Since this writing this region may have been severely disturbed by the 1925 Charlevoix-Kamouraska earthquake - a major earthquake with the epicenter in Quebec City that struck the entire northeastern part of North America on February 2, 1925, reaching 6.2 on the moment magnitude scale.

The earthquake was one of the most powerful measured in Canada in the twentieth century. The main epicenter was in the region of Quebec City and Shawinigan, and could be felt as far west as Mississippi and as far south as Virginia. It damaged three distinctly different areas. The first area of damage was constricted to a narrow belt about 20 miles in distance along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River close to the epicenter where there was damage to the villages of Saint-Urbain, Les Eboulements, Baeie-Saint-Paul, La Malbaie, Tadoussac, Pointe-au-Pic, and other villages in the vicinity on the south shore nearby including St-Pacome, Riviere-Ouelle, Saint-Denis, Ste-Anne-de-la-Pocatier, Saint-Philippe, and Saint-Pascal on the southern shore, mostly due to the earthquake's agitation helped by the deep granulous soil which caused destruction of buildings in the area. The two additional damaged regions were Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres-Shawinigan where the devastation was the worst due to not just the magnitude of the quake, but because of the uneven landscape. Also, there were approximately 55 aftershocks on record, ranging on a scale of 2 to 5 magnitude, that continued for weeks.

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